In the mind of Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia is already floating free from the rest of Spain.

The president of the Generalitat regional government came to power in January promising independence in 18 months, but says Catalonia is already “emancipated” from the tortuous political process that has deprived Spain of a government since inconclusive elections in December. On June 26, Spain will hold the first repeat elections in its modern democratic history.

“We don’t depend on them any more. The Spanish elections aren’t a decisive factor in the Catalan independence process,” the 53-year-old Catalan president told POLITICO in an interview.

Whether this process is irreversible, or just a ruse to negotiate more autonomy from Madrid, is an existential question for Spain and of vital strategic importance to the European Union: a cradle of Mediterranean culture, Catalonia’s 7.5 million people make up a sixth of the Spanish population and nearly a fifth of Spain’s economic output.

Madrid is determined to keep the kingdom united, fearful also that a Catalan split would encourage the Basques, Galicians, Valencians and other independent-minded regions to go it alone.

Encouraged by Mariano Rajoy’s outgoing government, the Constitutional Court invalidated a 2014 referendum in which 80 percent of ballots cast favored independence, though turnout was very low as the main pro-unity parties boycotted the vote. In last September’s high-turnout Catalan election, 48 percent of votes, but an absolute majority of seats, went to secessionist parties, including Puigdemont’s center-right Convergencia.

From the day he took power after three months of coalition wrangling, Puigdemont said he has made it clear to Spain’s four biggest parties — now acting prime minister Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party, Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists, Pablo Iglesias’ far-left Podemos and Albert Rivera’s centrist Ciudadanos — that Catalonia has already embarked on its own separatist path.

“We aren’t waiting any more. We are taking decisions,” said the former journalist and ex-mayor of Girona.

Adéu to Europe?

The 18-month countdown that Puigdemont declared in January will culminate in elections for a constitutional assembly “for a future Catalan republic” where Spain’s King Felipe will no longer reign, but where the Spanish language and culture, and many residents who originate from elsewhere in the peninsula, will thrive alongside the Catalan speakers, he said.

Not, however, if the majority Spanish political forces opposed to independence can help it, including the Popular Party, the Socialists and Ciudadanos, the business-friendly party founded in Barcelona by Catalan-born Rivera a decade ago.

Albert Rivera, leader of Ciudadanos and Spanish presidential candidate in the June 26 general election, with Inés Arrimadas, the party’s leader in Catalonia | Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images

Inés Arrimadas, Ciudadanos’ 34-year-old leader in the Catalan parliament, worries it could lead to the disintegration of Spain if there is “a breakaway referendum every six months regarding a different part of the country.”

Born far away in Andalusia’s Jerez de la Frontera, she took an interest in Catalonia as a girl, picking up a Catalan dictionary when she was 10 and moving there nearly a decade ago. Identifying herself as “Catalan, Andalusian, Spanish and European,” she singles out European Union membership as the biggest flaw in the nationalists’ argument.

“We don’t want to leave the European Union for even five minutes” — Inés Arrimadas, Ciudadanos

The way Puigdemont sees it, once Catalan breaks with EU member Spain, it will exit the EU by one door and come right back in through another because Brussels will be desperate to hold onto an economically powerful region at the heart of Europe’s culture and traditions.

“I see no reason why Europe shouldn’t make the same effort it is now making to convince the U.K. to remain in Europe,” said the president, contrasting the EU vocation of Catalonia’s “7.5 million European citizens” with Britain’s lack of enthusiasm. Dismissing the destabilizing impact of a Spanish breakup, he says the bloc is resilient: “The EU has an iron ill-health.”

The European Commission appears keen to remain above the fray. Puigdemont spoke to POLITICO during a visit to Belgium last week when he met the premier of the Flanders region — a nationalist who shares Convergencia’s separatist vision — but not Jean-Claude Juncker, whose spokesperson said there was no room in the diary of the Commission chief, nor any other commissioner.

Miquel Iceta, leader in Catalonia of Sánchez’s Socialists, said Puidgemont’s difficulties getting face-time with EU leaders was “a clear sign that nobody in Europe is going to favor a change of frontiers, especially one carried out unilaterally and illegally.”

Arrimadas, of Ciudadanos, says Brussels has made it abundantly clear that any region of an EU member country that chooses independence will automatically become a third country and have to re-apply for membership — “and we know that there are countries that take 10 to 15 years to get membership.”

“We don’t want to leave the European Union for even five minutes,” she told POLITICO by phone from Barcelona, citing the damage it would do to the Catalan economy, the frustration it would cause ordinary people, and how unjustified the whole independence push is given the high level of autonomy Catalonia already has in areas such as education, health and security.

Hardliners

Puigdemont advises against pre-empting how European countries will react “once Catalonia has taken a democratic decision,” adding that he trusts “in the democratic maturity of the Spanish people, who are today hugely more mature than their own political class.”

The coalition wrangling in Madrid wasn’t very edifying, but it was complicated by the Catalan question. The PP, Socialists and Ciudadanos all reject the challenge to national unity, which was one of the main factors that prevented Socialist Sánchez — who came second in December — from getting the support he needed from Podemos’ Iglesias, who said in February: “It’s necessary to have a referendum in Catalonia.”

Catalonia has been “the elephant in the room” in the Spanish coalition talks, Raül Romeva, the region’s foreign affairs chief, told POLITICO in an interview last month.

Rajoy’s conservatives have traditionally taken the hardest line. Puigdemont blames the PP’s influence for a 2010 constitutional court ruling that undermined Catalonia’s hard-won statute of autonomy, which the region lost under the dictator Francisco Franco, recovered when democracy was restored, and renewed in a 2006 referendum.

Former Catalan President Artur Mas stepped down in January to facilitate a deal with radical-left independentists CUP. The image shows Mas and successor Puigdemont as the latter takes office on January 12 | David Ramos/Getty Images

According to Puigdemont, that was the breaking point for moderate forces like Convergencia, which were previously willing to work with Madrid on more autonomy, rather than a divorce. “Thank you, constitutional court, it all started with you,” he said.

The Socialists and Ciudadanos promise to win back the Catalans by restoring dialogue if they lead or take part in a new Spanish government after June’s elections. Opinion polls currently put the PP in the lead but without their own majority again, meaning more months of coalition negotiations are likely to ensue.

“In the end, it was always the moderates who decided the outcome. I’m not sure about this time” — José Areilza, law professor

This worries Iceta of the Socialists. Every day that passes without clear advances for Puigdemont’s agenda, more Catalans will realize the separatist path is “doomed to failure,” he says. But at the same time, “the more time passes, the harder it gets” for the nationalists to negotiate anything less than complete independence. One Socialist proposal, for example, is a referendum across Spain on moving to a federal system, which would give Catalonia more autonomy.

José Areilza, a law professor at ESADE, a business and law school in Barcelona, sees tension growing inside the independence camp between pragmatic parties like Convergencia, who have proved willing to negotiate in the past, and hardliners including some nationalist leftists who are seen as a threat by the Catalan business community, and even oppose EU membership.

“Since the end of the 1970s, we have had a long tradition of pro-independence parties in Catalonia who demanded a lot, but in the end were pragmatic and sat down with the Spanish government to negotiate a better deal for the region and reach more autonomy,” said Areilza.

“In the end, it was always the moderates who decided the outcome,” he said. “I’m not sure about this time.”

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TF Jenssen

Every time I read or hear someone say that Catalonia already ‘enjoys’ a high level of autonomy I wonder if they are simply being incredibly cynical or just phenomenally ignorant. Catalonia’s parliament cannot pass a single law that isn’t immediately attacked and ridiculised in the Spanish media and then revoked by the Spanish constitutional court in Madrid. Soon, Catalans won’t even be able to pick which colour to paint a local school, for example. I completely sympathise with their fully Democratic quest of achieving political independent from Madrid. Who wouldn’t?

Posted on 5/9/16 | 1:10 PM CET

jastarloa

The Autonomous Government of Catalonia and other Autonomous regions of Spain have higher level of autonomy that other so-called federal states like Germany.

The comment from TF Jensen “Catalonia’s parliament cannot pass a single law that isn’t immediately attacked and ridiculised in the Spanish media and then revoked by the Spanish constitutional court in Madrid.” , is just a lie without any support.
I do not deny that have been revoked laws. And there are revoked based in the inconstutionality of the law regarding the Spanish constitution, that is a higher ranked law.
The catalan goverment refuses to put laws in action that thez do not like, for example guarantee a fourth hour of Spanish language in the schools. The education is transferred to the autonomous goverments, and for example they have decided the impossibility of studying in Spanish except if you are in a private School (the same kind of schools that the catalan politicians Montilla and Mas send their children to learn spanish properly)

Posted on 5/9/16 | 4:14 PM CET

MSR

“The education is transferred to the autonomous goverments” … yes, but budget is decided in Madrid, what is teachen is decided in Madrid -i. Catholic religion- , how many time is allocated to teach Spanish language -or wahtever else- is decided in Madrid, who gets an scolarship is decided in Madrid .. and so on.
In Spanish mentality this a ‘ high level of autonomy’. Actually decisions are taken in Madrid, while manage them is allowed to regions.

Posted on 5/9/16 | 5:02 PM CET

Filippo

This conflict between centralism and regionalism has very deep roots in spanish history and goes back at least to the dinastic change from the regionalist absburg to the centralist borbon and it has kept restless for three centuries straight. Civil wars were fought for this reason and Franco solved it the authoritarian way in favor of centralism. Then democracy made the opposite choice and they had no problem until the right came to power. It reharshes any time the PPE wins the government, because basicly they never really shared the regionalist costitution and the catalans feel threatened. And probably they actually are

Posted on 5/9/16 | 6:17 PM CET

Enric

@jastarloa… that’s the typical manipulation of the Spanish press… “Spanish is outcasted in Catalan schools”… aside that’s a pure fantasy, please do check the supposedly “unbiased” results of the OECD’s PISA test for schools: the level of Spanish proficiency of pupils in Catalonia is HIGHER than those in certain Spanish autonomies in which Spanish is the ONLY official language. Can you care to explain how’s that possible if Spanish is only residually taught in Catalan schools? are perhaps the pupils in Catalonia all so gifted that they can do with a mere fraction of lecture time devoted to the Spanish language?

Posted on 5/10/16 | 6:29 AM CET

HP

EU membership is not open to territories, but to Nation-States. If part of a Member-State secedes, it also leaves the EU. Should the new state want to keep the advantages of membership, it should apply for membership and hence be accepted by all Member States, including Spain and all other Member States that have to deal with separatists of their own. Even the Member States sympathetic to Catalonian independence, if there are any, would have to find very good reasons indeed to antagonize Spain. The conclusion is very simple: if Catalonia becomes independent, Spain holds the key to its EU Membership. So either Catalonia finds an agreement with Spain, either it stays outside the EU.

Posted on 5/10/16 | 9:44 AM CET

Alice Friston

And what about the uncontrolled and spiralling debt of Catalonia only supported by the rest of Spain?

N.B. 1 Have a guess on nowadays Catalonia Government bonds status.
N. B. 2 To my knowledge the Spanish Constitutional Court is a legal body included in the Constitution of a western democracy within the EU. Am I wrong?
N.B. 3 Mind you that the said Constitution was accepted and posivively voted by an ample majority of catalans.
N.B. 4 Spain (and Portugal by the same token) has the oldest border lines in Europe. Any other eurooean country has changed its borders in the last 300 years while Spanish ones have remained untouched. Fantasies and mithologies translated into children’s stories must be avoided in politics.

Posted on 5/10/16 | 11:49 AM CET

Filippo

@alice,
Waiting for the constitutional court to replace the government in solving a political problem is part of the problem itself. Just as happened with the cancelation of the new Estatuto wanted by Rajoy, that started this new reharshal of separatism. Spain has the oldest borders in Europe? True, as it is true that it has the most contested ones since ever. How many wars and revolts happened on this issue in the latest three centuries? The catalans were in favour of the present constitution? True, and the parties now protagonizing the revolt were leading this acceptation, instead of triggering another revolt like the basque did. Probably you should thank them for a pacific return to democracy much more than the populars. If they changed their mind you should wonder if recently something wrong has been done

Posted on 5/10/16 | 12:52 PM CET

Marcel

We’ll force Spain to accept reality. If they obstruct the independent Catalan Republic we just threaten to withold funds from Spain or force more austeritu.

Catalunya no es Espana!

Posted on 5/10/16 | 6:55 PM CET

Alice Friston

@Filippo
Please excuse my ignorance! Were civil wars (or revolts as it were) fought in Spain for the sake of borders? Or rather to maintain the Ancien Régime or evict democracy altogether?
Save for Gibraltar, Menorca, Olivenza and the French invasion I have no record of any internal border struggle in the Iberian Peninsula for the last 300 years.
May be you can enlighten me in this respect.

Posted on 5/11/16 | 9:50 AM CET

Filippo

@alice,
In the XIX century the carlist movement had its deepest roots in Catalunya and Pais Vasco, whose people joined the movement not only for its opposition to modern liberalism, dios y patria, but to the isabeline centralism, fueros. Three guerras carlistas were fought most of all in the north the civil war as well, the catalan republic was declared twice, 31 and 34. But if you prefer pretending that the centralized kingdom created by the borbons has never been contested there is no evidence that can convince you.